I took an 8 month hiatus. Does anyone really even blog anymore? I decided that I would attempt to blog each day in November for National Blog Month, but like always, I'm running late. A day late.
I'd have to say it's been yet another roller coaster year for me, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to survive it. I'll just share our "adventure" of the summer....
Out basement flooded AGAIN. Not once. Twice. We're not talking water. We're talking raw sewage that belonged to us and half the neighborhood probably. The floods literally happened within one week of each other. Have you ever sprayed your basement down with a hose? Do you own "poop shoes" and a "poop broom"? I do.
I thought the first time was awful. I cried. I got mad. But, I pulled on my big girl pants and set to work cleaning and purging. Let me tell you, there is not enough bleach in the world to rid the images from my mind.
Once it was all cleaned up the first time, we had another big issue come up, that I'm still too traumatized to talk about, but let's just say I had the meltdown of the century, and my house ended up cleaned from top to bottom.
Cue that Friday night. It rained most of the night I figured maybe we'd have a little water this time. I finally got brave enough to go check, but I already know as soon as I opened the basement door and the smell hit me. Only this time it was SO much worse.
Several inches of sewage water. All of our totes that were floor level, plus the ones I had stacked on top of them were tipped over and the contents were all lying in a sopping mess. I had planned to have a garage sale, so all of my boxes from that were destroyed. Most of my clothes and some of the boys clothes were soaked. The Christmas tree (that I just bought last year) was on the floor. (It had been stacked on top of other bins.)
Once the water receded, I grabbed my poop shoes and poop broom and got to work. We hauled out bins and ruined items. Hosed down and bleached the bins. Threw everything else in the trash. I hosed the basement down. For those wondering what a poop broom is, that would be the broom I used to push said poop back down the floor drain.
I spent the early afternoon, standing there wringing out every single piece of clothing that was salvageable and throwing out others. Threw the first of many loads in the washing machine only to hear it go, "click, click, click, click..." and then would shut off.
One of our church parsonages was empty, and has a washer and dryer, so I hauled a million pounds of bins over to wash everything. I was also able to shower there because our water heater had gone out too.
After a couple rounds of bleaching at home Saturday and then another couple on Sunday, I finally had to call it good.
Then I sent an e-mail to Roto Rooter, since most of you know my issues with them. Insurance covers nothing, Roto Rooter messed up some stuff, and we realized that the city has major sewer issues (so I got a group from the neighborhood and went to a streets and sewer committee meeting to complain!) We literally had a huge chunk of our basement floor dug up to have new pipes laid. Cha-ching!
At the end of the crap show, I was able to still find the blessings. I think sometimes that's the most important thing and what can really get you through because I spent a good portion of summer feeling pretty depressed.
For starters, a friend came over to try to help relight our pilot light on the water heater. When that didn't work, he gave us the name of a plumber who does fair work. He spent almost 3 hours working on and going to get a part and then only charged us $60.
I was blessed to have a place to do laundry, and take a warm shower. Plus, it was a place of serenity. I needed calm. After about 5 loads of laundry and a trip to Walmart for more cleaning supplies, I just sat on the floor in one of the bedrooms eating Subway, and just embracing the solitude.
Roto Rooter worked with me and the regional manager came to our house. They did end up giving us a bit of compensation. Not a ton, but enough to help with our costs that were adding up.
My mom set up a donation thing for us on Facebook, and several people supported us, and we were thankfully able to pay off all of the work at had to be done. I hate to ask for help, but between that and our other issue we were dealing with, it really was a huge blessing.
My uncle sent money for a new washing machine.
And, I had a few friends I was able to confide in when I was ready to have a breakdown.
I'm not sure why God let all of that happen this summer, but I am glad to be done with it and that he got us through it.
To quote Pete the Cat, "No matter what you step in, keep walking along and singing your song. Because, it's all good!"
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